Formula One is being stifled by a lack of innovation and needs a radical overhaul to withstand the global credit crunch, motor racing head Max Mosley said on Wednesday.
"We need dramatically to cut costs and get innovation back into Formula One," the head of the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) told a motor sport business forum in Monaco.
"We must stabilize the system with a base engine which anyone can have and which is inexpensive, as well as a standard gearbox. That will stabilize Formula One until we can bring in new energy-efficient engines which undoubtedly will be the future."
Mosley has also been a strong supporter of the KERS system, due to be introduced next season, which captures energy generated under braking and transforms it into short bursts of additional power.
Some teams have called for the system to be delayed, while others have said they will start the season without it.
Mosley said the response from manufacturers was widely divergent.
"One manufacturer has produced electric systems which will astonish people when they appear, another team is working on a completely new technology which will also astonish people," he said.
"But some leading teams, such as Ferrari, have said that they don't like KERS because it is 'too complicated'.
"Could you imagine the great F1 engineers like (Lotus founder Colin) Chapman or (Cosworth DFV engine designer Keith) Duckworth saying `I can't do that because it is too complicated'?.
"It is a symptom of a disease in F1 where incremental change becomes the whole object of the exercise and real serious innovation plays no part," added the 68-year-old.
Mosley's comments came before a meeting with the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) to discuss the proposal for a standard engine from 2010 and map out a low-cost survival strategy for the next few years.
Japan's second largest carmaker Honda shocked the sport last week with the announcement that it was leaving and Mosley warned that others could follow.
"Honda pulled out because of falling car sales and there is no guarantee that these falling sales, which affect all manufacturers, will not drop further," he said.
"If they do, then we have to prepare for other manufacturers to pull out not only from Formula One but other areas of motor sport as well."
"What is wrong with Formula One today was wrong before any of the present economic problems cropped up," continued Mosley, who made clear that he wanted the sport to remain the pinnacle of motor racing technology.
"Essentially it's the rules, which have become ever more restrictive compressing the work of the engineers into an ever smaller area.
"As such, success in F1 today consists of optimizing every single part of the chassis to the ultimate degree and that is both extremely expensive and utterly pointless."
Mosley cited the example of one, unidentified, team that he said had been paying around $1 million a season for specialised lightweight wheel nuts imported from California and costing $1,000 each.